The entertainment industry and others produce and distribute copyrighted material to consumers for profit. The artists who create this material receive payments for each copy of their work sold. Thus, efforts are made to protect the intellectual and creative property of these artists and publishers, and to ensure that the publishers and artists receive full remuneration for their work by minimizing the ability of organizations and individuals to circumvent the protections afforded copyright holders when their works are distributed to the public via electronic means.
There are two main classes of threat to the intellectual property rights of the publishers and artists. The first class is the pirate who obtains a copy of the original work (legally or illegally), duplicates it, and then distributes it for profit without permission from or payment to the copyright holders. The second class is the individual who acquires a copy of the work, and then makes copies to be distributed (for sale or for free) to others, such as friends and family. Both classes of threat are considered to be illegal and to deprive the copyright holder of compensation for the work. Although pirates have significantly greater resources at their disposal for acquisition and duplication of material, individuals can do significant financial damage by releasing an illegal copy to the Internet. In that case, the potential for lost revenue to the copyright holders may be significant—even greater than from pirates.
The pirate may obtain a copy of a work and apply significant resources to extract the copyrighted material. Once extracted, thousands of illegal copies can be produced. It may not be practical to prevent this, but it has been considered possible to tag the material with a watermark so that the source of the original copy can be determined. This technique can also be used to identify illegal copies. This aids in the apprehension and prosecution of pirates. Thus, the means for dealing with the pirate threat has been to place some barriers to copying, but to ensure that there is a mechanism for identifying pirated material and prosecuting those responsible.
The individual consumer, who may acquire a copy and make it available to thousands or millions of people simply by posting the material to the Internet, is a much more difficult threat to avert. Protections cannot be so cumbersome as to hamper the legitimate use of legally acquired material because that might cause consumers to refuse to purchase the material. On the other hand, the current system of unprotected distribution of material places no barriers in the way of the consumer who makes illegal copies. Also, once the copy is released, it is not possible to trace the source for prosecution.
Thus, there is a need not only for a system and method which will enable the apprehension and prosecution of illegal copiers, including pirates and individuals, but also for a system and method which will place a sufficient barrier to prevent the casual copier from illegally distributing intellectual property to friends and family and from posting such intellectual property to the Internet as well, while not imposing undue burdens on legitimate consumers. In that sense, a balance must be achieved.
Thus, such a system and method should provide legitimate consumers with the ability to purchase and enjoy copyrighted material in all of the environments in which they currently do so. For example, many people own a media player at home, one in their car, and maybe a third portable player they take with them for recreation. Current law permits such a person to purchase a single copy of a media item to be played on any of these devices. The consumer is permitted to make a copy for personal use only. However, the consumer may not copy the media item and distribute it to other family members, friends, or acquaintances, even if no money exchanges hands.
Today, the consumer can take the legitimate media item and play it in any of these devices without restriction. There is a need for a system and method which will provide media protection while ensuring that this is still possible, but which will make it impossible for the general consumer to make illegal copies of a media item to distribute to others. The system and method should also provide a mechanism which will permit the consumer to acquire other media players and to use those to play the media item, but which will restrict other people from playing the media item without the direct consent of the original purchaser.